Genealogy on the Road: Granville, Tennessee

The third stop on our genealogical journey was Granville in Jackson County, Tennessee.  While our stops in Kentucky and Virginia were dedicated to the Castles, this leg of our journey would hopefully tell us more about the Roberts and Huff families on our mother’s side.  We were going to miss the big genealogy weekend in Granville but maybe we could still learn something.

I had looked up Granville on Google Maps and my plan was to come into town by way of the Dry Fork of Martin’s Creek upon which our Huff family had lived in the mid-1800s.  Tim and I took the winding State Highway 290 and drove and drove and drove.  Little did we know, that was the shortcut.  We finally gave up, went back to the turnoff, drove to the town of Gainesboro and turned south, only to realize that if we had stayed on Highway 290 for another mile, we would have come out within a couple of miles of Granville.  I enjoyed the drive, though, and got a feeling for the area where our ancestors lived.

Granville was a delight.  We had been concerned that Tim wouldn’t have anything to do while I did research at the Granville Museum, but after we saw the town, we knew that wouldn’t be a problem.  He visited with the volunteer at the museum while I looked through notebooks for the Huff and Pharris families that had been prepared for the upcoming genealogy weekend.  While I didn’t find information that was far enough back to be helpful, I did recognize some researchers’ names that I had seen on ancestry.com.  Now I knew how they were connected with the various families of Jackson County.  Too bad we wouldn't be there this weekend to meet some of these researchers in person.

Granville Museum, Granville, Tennessee

It was lunchtime, so we decided to eat at the Sutton General Store.  My brother, surprisingly, had never had pimiento cheese, and I had never had it grilled, so I ordered that.  He ordered a chicken salad sandwich and a bottle of RC Cola, and we shared our sandwich halves.  Yummy and quintessentially Southern.  I bought a cookbook, Historical Recipes of Granville, which included the chicken salad recipe.  I have enjoyed looking at the recipes, especially ones contributed by the descendants of families that have lived in the area since the 1800s.

Sutton General Store, Granville, Tennessee

Lunch at Sutton General Store

After a trip to the gift shop, located in the old bank building, we were on the road again-- headed for Franklin, Tennessee, and the Civil War.

Gift shop at the old bank, Granville, TN